Sometimes Ryan Montbleau feels like he’s been on an endless tour for his entire career. After the singer-songwriter put out his debut LP, Begin, in 2002, handing out CDs at shows around Boston, he hit the road and never got off.
“My poor managers have been trying to get me on a record cycle forever, but I just kind of tour relentlessly,” Montbleau said. “The tour started in 2003, and it hasn’t really stopped.”
Just as he’s spent most of his two-decade career jumping from town to town, he also rarely lingers in one place musically. Montbleau is a wildly eclectic songwriter with an ear for catchy hooks. He pairs a wry sense of humor with a poetic streak to explore devastatingly heavy themes. His forthcoming album Fine Lines, due out in June, is his most varied collection of music to date, full of jam-adjacent funk, strains of R&B and soul, and even shades of hip-hop and reggae. It’s the record of a songwriter who, a quarter of a century into his career, is assured and daring — and still striving to perfect his art.
“I’m pushing 50, so it took long enough, but I finally feel confident in myself as a songwriter,” Montbleau said. “This has been my only job for 23 years now, and in some ways, the dream has never been refined since then.”
Though he’s been a Burlington resident for the better part of a decade, Montbleau’s hectic tour schedule rarely finds him in town. Seven Days reached him by phone on tour in Virginia to chat about his career, his long-gestating new record, and the challenges of fitting into the Burlington music scene when he’s never in town. Perhaps he could start with the Ryan Montbleau Band show at the Higher Ground Ballroom in South Burlington this Friday, April 10.
True story: I spent years thinking you just loved playing in Burlington. I had no idea you lived here until you said something onstage at Radio Bean about “sleeping in your own bed tonight.”
[Laughing.] Yeah, nobody knows I live here. In everybody’s defense, I’m always on the road. But it’s my home; I absolutely love Burlington. But I also only play here as much as any other tour stop, which is really about the economics of it all. If you’re charging people for a ticket and they can see you play every week, they won’t keep doing it.
Has that made it difficult to feel part of the local scene?
A little, yeah. About five years ago, I told my agent, “Hey, we need to treat Burlington a little different.” This is where I live; I need to be free to be part of the community in other ways.
But I feel like I’ve been able to interact more in recent years. I sing jazz down at the 126 sometimes, and if Lee Anderson asks me to do something at Radio Bean, like the birthday party, I’ll totally do it. I love this community, so I’m always looking for ways to be part of it.
What do you make of the Burlington music scene these days?
I mean, I’m just trying to stay in tune with [singer-songwriter, guitarist] Bob Wagner. Everything is six degrees of Bob Wagner right now! He’s so good, man…
I never get bored in Burlington. There’s always something going on. Even before I moved here, the town struck me as a small city with a lot happening. Losing Nectar’s hurts for sure, and there’s a lot of change in the air — Lee talking about selling Radio Bean, all of that. But we’ll find a way. Like I said: For such a small market, there’s a ton of great music here, which is really what matters in the long run.
The new record is all over the place, genre-wise. Has that always been part of your goal: to create a sound that’s equal parts singer-songwriter in a coffeehouse and a big band jamming onstage at nightclubs?
Really what I want is a room full of people listening, just locked in to the sounds, no matter what I’m playing. As a singer-songwriter who’s been playing the jam scene for years, you get people who like to dance and rage and rock out — and I do that a lot with my band; I love it. But I’m also someone who really needs quiet, solo space. So when the hippies would come into Club Passim in Boston, I had to train them a little over the years.
My shows are all over the map. I want to make you laugh, cry and dance. I have this joke I use often, where I’ll tell the audience, “We are going to have so much fun … after this next song. But you need your medicine first.” But it’s a mix. It’s like Colonel Bruce Hampton said: “Put some joy in the room.”
The music business has changed dramatically since you started out in 2001, from the process of releasing new music to the shifting touring ecosystem. As a musician who’s carved out a 25-year career, how do you deal with such a volatile industry?
As I get older, I think it’s less about the validation from others. I just want to make a living in music. So there I’ll be, touring in Ohio, and I have arthritis in my hips from years of driving, but I’m still just doing the thing.
Maybe it’s cheesy, but I do feel a sense of purpose, a calling, whatever that means. I try to convey truth and share it with other people and create a space to share those truths — that’s what gets me out of the bed in the morning. Now, the travel hurts more, but the shows feel better and better. I still love doing it. I love the art form. I love performing. If that changes, I’ll have to answer some tough questions. But I still have this ambition that it can get bigger in some way.
Creativity doesn’t come from freedom;
Ryan Montbleau
it comes from limitation.
The new record sounds like a big swing. There’s so much sonically going on. It’s surprisingly funky! Was that intentional, to show off different sides of your songwriting?
Stylistically, yeah, it’s all over the map. But that wasn’t forced. It’s just me hoping I’m getting better at this thing and making better records. But you never really figure it out; it’s just about doing the work and staying true to yourself as a songwriter.
It’s my favorite art form. A song puts a necessary boundary around something, within which there is infinite creativity. Creativity doesn’t come from freedom; it comes from limitation. And my songs have really helped me frame my own mental state; they put a boundary on my feelings so they’re not some amorphous sadness. ➆
This interview was edited for clarity and length.
The original print version of this article was headlined “On the Road: Ryan Montbleau has a new album and a desire to be part of the Burlington music scene – when he’s actually in town”
This article appears in April 8 • 2026.
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